A mentoring program for underserved middle-school students in some of Tucson’s poorest neighborhoods is about to take off, thanks to two major gifts to The University of Arizona College of Education totaling $418,000.
Project SOAR (Student Outreach, Access, and Resiliency) at the College of Education is an innovative service-learning class offered for college credit through the Center for the Study of Higher Education. Students from all over campus take the class, which prepares them as mentors and tutors for younger students throughout Tucson.
“The College of Education places particular emphasis on establishing the relevance and importance of our research to major issues of educational practice faced by schools and communities,” says Ronald W. Marx, dean of the college.
The expanded range of issues that characterize contemporary education, especially the great diversity brought about by the changing demographics of American society, requires novel approaches like mentoring and the use of appropriate role models. “The middle years (sixth through eighth grade) are an especially influential phase in encouraging students to further their educational pursuits toward college,” Marx notes.
"When these young students work with our Project SOAR college-student mentors, they begin to see that college can be a reality for them,” he said. “This project has been so successful in its initial offering that we have managed to attract the interest of two important parties: Tucson philanthropist Emily L. Meschter, who has donated 240 new scholarships amounting to $132,000, and the Phoenix-based Helios Education Foundation, which has committed $286,000 for program operations and some additional scholarships.”
Marx also said that thanks to their generous gifts and other resources, the college will be able to invest nearly $200,000 into the program each year for three years.
Meschter considers her donation to also be an investment in the state’s future.
“Improving education is vital to the continued success of our wonderful state of Arizona, and I’m very pleased to be joined by another partner in mentoring middle-school students at the most critical time in their education,” she says.
Helios President Paul J. Luna adds, “Helping youth succeed through the middle school years and graduate prepared for postsecondary education is a key priority of the Helios Education Foundation. We believe Project SOAR is a good investment of the foundation’s resources because it opens the eyes of at-risk youth to postsecondary opportunities and provides them with the support structure they need to continue their education beyond high school.”
Assistant Professor Jenny Lee, who oversees Project SOAR, plans to send 100 college-student mentors and tutors every year for the next three years to schools in Tucson and Sunnyside unified school districts and Tucson’s charter schools, including the Wildcat School, Arizona’s first university-affiliated charter school.
“This generous outpouring of support from Helios and Emily Meschter demonstrates how much the community cares about and believes in its local students, especially those from low-income communities,” Lee says. “The funding will be used for a scholarship program that will help increase the number of UA mentors and tutors, and toward expanding our outreach to hundreds more middle-school students throughout Tucson.”
The program also has national impact: Project SOAR activities not only benefit the participating students, but also inform other universities and programs across the country on ways to effectively promote higher education among low-income and ethnic-minority students through its ongoing research on college access and outreach.
For more information about the College of Education, visit http://www.coe.arizona.edu.
Helios Education Foundation: www.helios.org
UA College of Education
520-626-3473